RE: Re: Coding style - a non-issue

RE: Re: Coding style - a non-issue

[n7ekg]

I have been following this thread with a mixture of amusement and exasperation - amusement that intelligent people like Linus, who ought to know better, are spouting this evolution stuff, and exasperation that some people think that because someone's an expert in one thing, they are an expert in all things.

The idea of genetic evolution itself is complete nonsense - biological systems don't evolve genetically, they evolve environmentally.  Biological systems change as a result of random mutation, and what doesn't work doesn't survive.  What people try to pass off as evolution is simply the less fit not surviving to pass on their bad genes.  Sort of like the hundred monkeys idea.

But that is all completely irrelevent to coding, since it is extremely inefficient for systems to "evolve" based on trial and error.  The way modern systems evolve is based on (hopefully) *intelligent* selection - I write a patch, submit it to Linus.  He doesn't accept it, throw it in the kernel, and that's it - he looks at it, what it does, and decides if it fits in the Grand Scheme of things - kernel efficiency, speed, flexibility, extensability, and maintainability - and *then* decides if it makes it in.  They key difference is that in nature, mutation is random because it can afford to be - in coding, it isn't because we don't have thousands or millions of years to find out whether or not something works or not.

That being said, I am well aware that "genetic programming" has made some progress in that direction, mainly because it doesn't take millenia to figure out what works and what doesn't.  But that's a long way from "evolving" an entire operating system.  I don't believe for a moment that homo sapiens "evolved" from pond scum although I might believe that some fellow homo sapiens *are* pond scum!) - it only makes sense that we are a created species, and that Homo Erectus ans all the rest were early genetic experiments.  Who created homo sapiens is beyond the scope of this discussion ;)

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Larry McVoy lm@bitmover.com
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2001 12:25:26 -0800
To: vonbrand@sleipnir.valparaiso.cl, yodaiken@fsmlabs.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Coding style - a non-issue


On Sat, Dec 01, 2001 at 08:18:06PM -0300, Horst von Brand wrote:
> Victor Yodaiken <yodaiken@fsmlabs.com> said:
> > Linux is what it is because of design, not accident. And you know
> > that better than anyone.
> 
> I'd say it is better because the mutations themselves (individual patches)
> go through a _very_ harsh evaluation before being applied in the "official"
> sources. 

Which is exactly Victor's point.  That evaluation is the design.  If the 
mutation argument held water then Linus would apply *ALL* patches and then
remove the bad ones.  But he doesn't.  Which just goes to show that on this
mutation nonsense, he's just spouting off.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	 lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitmover.com/lm 
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Re: Coding style - a non-issue

[Brandon McCombs]

On Sun, 2 Dec 2001 15:53:46 -0500
"n7ekg@swbell.net" <n7ekg@swbell.net> wrote:

> I have been following this thread with a mixture of amusement and exasperation - amusement that intelligent people like Linus, who ought to know better, are spouting this evolution stuff, and exasperation that some people think that because someone's an expert in one thing, they are an expert in all things.

No offense toward anyone but I find that many non-religious people can be found in the CompSci area of expertise. I'm not sure why this is but besides myself and another friend all the other people I know in that general field are atheists. It would only make sense that we would hear atheist type remarks within these discussions just as we would hear Christian remarks in another field of expertise that seems to attract Christians.

> 
> The idea of genetic evolution itself is complete nonsense - biological systems don't evolve genetically, they evolve environmentally.  Biological systems change as a result of random mutation, and what doesn't work doesn't survive.  What people try to pass off as evolution is simply the less fit not surviving to pass on their bad genes.  Sort of like the hundred monkeys idea.

True. Many mutations in human DNA cause the resulting human to be unable to reproduce once they reach the age where a normal human could do so.


> 
> But that is all completely irrelevent to coding, since it is extremely inefficient for systems to "evolve" based on trial and error.  The way modern systems evolve is based on (hopefully) *intelligent* selection - I write a patch, submit it to Linus.  He doesn't accept it, throw it in the kernel, and that's it - he looks at it, what it does, and decides if it fits in the Grand Scheme of things - kernel efficiency, speed, flexibility, extensability, and maintainability - and *then* decides if it makes it in.  They key difference is that in nature, mutation is random because it can afford to be - in coding, it isn't because we don't have thousands or millions of years to find out whether or not something works or not.

We have a way of being able to direct the evolution of our code as we can control the bad parts and teh good parts and what gets added and what doesn't.  We have no control over our DNA (human genetics may have proven me wrong already but if not, it shouldn't take more than a few months more) so mutations in the human race are more random.

> 
> That being said, I am well aware that "genetic programming" has made some progress in that direction, mainly because it doesn't take millenia to figure out what works and what doesn't.  But that's a long way from "evolving" an entire operating system.  I don't believe for a moment that homo sapiens "evolved" from pond scum although I might believe that some fellow homo sapiens *are* pond scum!) - 

*finally* someone who doesn't believe in evolution of the human race.  As a side note, i've heard some people say that a bolt of lightning triggered some proteins to start growing into single celled organisms and then into what we now call today human beings.  I take offense that I came from a single celled organism.  I believe the more complex an object or system is the less randomness can be added in order to arrive at the current/final version. I think we all agree the human body is the most complex object in the universe so how can we say that our existence was an accident?

An operating system is a complex system as well. We all know code doesn't evolve on its own to generate an operating system right? :) It has to be created and as time goes on code forks are sometimes introduced.  In humans that could be somewhat akin to whites, blacks, asians, etc.  But they were all created from the code that God started with. He just released his source code(dna) a little later in the development tree than some people may have wanted so there was no point in letting us evolve into something more as we were already different enough. :)

>it only makes sense that we are a created species, and that Homo Erectus ans all the rest were early genetic > experiments.  Who created homo sapiens is beyond the scope of this discussion ;)

It is beyond the scope. If we attempted that topic we would be branded as close-minded even though the others (read: non-religious) can do it and they defend themselves by saying its free speech.

my time is out for this post.
brandon

Re: Coding style - a non-issue

[Alexander Viro]

On Sun, 2 Dec 2001, Brandon McCombs wrote:

[snip badly-formatted creationism advocacy]

Please, learn to
	* use line breaks
	* be intellectually honest
	* be at least remotely on-topic

*plonk*

Re: Coding style - a non-issue

[Jonathan Abbey]

brandon wrote:
|
|  *finally* someone who doesn't believe in evolution of the human race.
| As a side note, i've heard some people say that a bolt of lightning
| triggered some proteins to start growing into single celled organisms
| and then into what we now call today human beings.  I take offense
| that I came from a single celled organism.  I believe the more complex
| an object or system is the less randomness can be added in order to
| arrive at the current/final version. I think we all agree the human
| body is the most complex object in the universe so how can we say that
| our existence was an accident?

Again, a complete misunderstanding of evolution.  Evolution is itself
a design process.. it is simply a design process that admits to an
literally unthinkable amount of complexity.  No individual or team of
individuals, no matter how intelligent, could sit down and create from
scratch the Linux kernel as it exists today.  There are tons and tons
of design elements in the code that emerged from trial and error, and
from interactions between the hardware to be supported, the user level
code to run on it, and the temporal exigencies of the kernel code
itself.  The fact that humans applied thought to all (well, at least
to some) of the changes made doesn't mean that the overarching dynamic
isn't an evolutionary one.

Taking offense at evolution having produced us from simpler organisms
is like taking offense at the rain, or the sun setting at night.  We
can now look at life and actually read the code, and see how much is
held in common and how much varies between different organisms, just
as surely as we can with all of the linux kernels over the last ten
years.  Both systems have lots of characteristics in common, and for
perfect reasons.

Linus is right.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonathan Abbey 				              jonabbey@arlut.utexas.edu
Applied Research Laboratories                 The University of Texas at Austin
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX     http://www.arlut.utexas.edu/gash2

Re: Re: Coding style - a non-issue

[Daniel Phillips]

On December 2, 2001 09:53 pm, n7ekg@swbell.net wrote:
> I have been following this thread with a mixture of amusement and 
> exasperation - amusement that intelligent people like Linus, who ought to 
> know better, are spouting this evolution stuff, and exasperation that some 
> people think that because someone's an expert in one thing, they are an 
> expert in all things.

That's because you're not quite clear on the concept.

> ...in nature, mutation is random

It isn't random, if it were most mutated individuals would be stillborn.

> because it can afford to be...

No it can't.

--
Daniel

Re: Coding style - a non-issue

[Trever L. Adams]

> *finally* someone who doesn't believe in evolution of the human race.  As a side note, i've heard some people say that a bolt of lightning triggered some proteins to start growing into single celled organisms and then into what we now call today human beings.  I take offense that I came from a single celled organism.  I believe the more complex an object or system is the less randomness can be added in order to arrive at the current/final version. I think we all agree the human body is the most complex object in the universe so how can we say that our existence was an accident?
>

I personally will stay out of the religious side of this argument,
having been flamed for standing up for any religious stand point on this
list.

However, I just finished my two bio classes for my CS degree.  It is
interesting that you mention this lightening theory.  My bio book (sorry
no references and no quotes, maybe later) stated that many people
(60's-80's) have tried very hard to duplicate and find conditions
whereby simple molecules could even form basic RNA or other such
biological/organic compounds.  They had some very minimal success.  In
the end it was concluded that the methods they were trying probably
would never have created RNA and other such things that may have
assembled a cell.  Some of these tests were based on this lightening
theory.

Maybe such spontaneous life could have happened another way... I don't
really know.

As for software evolution.  I would have to weigh in with my opinion
being somewhere between Linus and many others.  Software does evolve. 
Just about any human project does.  This is one reason why there are
"versions", "editions", etc.  You can only design so much.  Then you go
back and evolve it.  Is Linus right that there was nearly no design??  I
think he would know best about the earliest roots of Linux.  However, I
think he is wrong that now there is no design (though there may be no
master plan, which would mean it is controlled evolution more than
engineered/designed).

Anyway, I will sink back into silence for now.

Trever Adams